Dead links are removed by unwrapping the Markdown link syntax to leave the raw anchor text intact within the sentence, discarding unreachable citations verified via HTTP range GET probes while preserving protected money links.

sequenceDiagram
    participant Draft as Generated Draft
    participant Probe as HTTP Range Probe
    participant Cleaner as Prune Engine
    participant Output as Sanitized Draft

    Draft->>Probe: Extract URLs from Markdown
    Probe-->>Cleaner: Status: 200 OK vs 404/Timeout
    Cleaner->>Cleaner: Filter dead non-target links
    Cleaner->>Output: Unwrap link to plain anchor text
    Note over Output: Prose and sentence flow remain intact